Dhaka, Nov 10 – The Indian prime minister has assured his Bangladeshi counterpart that the Teesta interim agreement would be signed 'as soon as possible.'
"The two prime ministers had a sideline meeting for half an hour and discussed on water, connectivity, land boundary, trade, line of credit, power cooperation and other issues," said sources in the foreign ministry.
Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian premier Manmohan Singh, along with six other heads of governments and states, are now in Addu to attend the 17th SAARC summit, which kicked off in the afternoon.
"The Indian side said they are working on the issue and it would be finalised as soon as possible," said a senior official of the ministry.
Bangladesh and India failed to strike the Teesta deal during Manmohan's visit to Dhaka in September due to the strong opposition from the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
CONNECTIVITY
Both the prime ministers stressed that connectivity was important for regional development.
"We asked them to develop the necessary infrastructure for connectivity and the Indian side was positive about it," he said.
Trial run of transshipment has begun and officials of both the countries would sit together to analyse the arrangement. "The trial run has begun and we will analyse problems to resolve those for smooth passage of goods."
Bangladesh has allowed transshipment for passage of Indian goods from Kolkata to Agartala through Ashuganj river port from September without any fees, under a trial run arrangement.
The Indian side on numerous occasions had announced that they were ready to pay a transit and transshipment fee, whereas Bangladesh policy makers have said the fee would be decided upon by March.
POWER COOPERATION
Acknowledging that there was a wider scope for regional power cooperation, both Dhaka and Delhi expressed their desire to working on the issue.
"Both the side agreed that there is scope for having regional power cooperation for sustainable development," the ministry official said.
Power purchase agreements to import 250 megawatt of electricity from India would be signed soon and after that both sides would begin negotiations to import power from the Palatana power plant in Tripura.
India has sent the equipment for the power plant through Bangladesh and Dhaka expressed its desire to buy electricity from the plant.
LINE OF CREDIT
Indian premier Manmohan Singh directed his officials to expedite the process of completing the development works under $1 billion line of credit (LoC).
India, during Hasina's visit to Delhi in January 2010, announced a $1 billion LoC and eventually the agreement was signed in August that year.
So far, over $750 million worth of different projects have been approved and two agreements have already been signed.
LAND BOUNDARY AGREEMENT
Bangladesh in the meeting emphasised on making the land boundary agreement operational.
"We have signed a protocol on land boundary agreement in September but it is not operational as it has not been ratified by the parliament," he said.
The Indian side in response said they have started the ratification process of the land boundary related documents.
Bangladesh and India signed land boundary agreement in 1974 to resolve the boundary dispute but even though Bangladesh had ratified it, so far India has not ratified it in its parliament.
According to the agreement and its protocol, the agreement would only be operational after the ratification.
The two-day 17th SAARC summit kicked off on Thursday afternoon in Addu in the Maldives with an aim to promote greater integration in the region.
It is expected that several agreements will be signed in the meetings, including implementation of regional standards, multilateral arrangement on recognition of conformity assessment, rapid response to natural disasters, and the establishment of a SAARC seed bank.
The process of liberalisation of trade under the South Asian Free Trade Area Agreement (SAPTA) is also expected to move forward during the summit meeting.
bdnews24.com
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